FIFTH INNER SCENE.
On a platform at Elsinore, by blazing starlight, three Figures are seen pacing the cold.
HAMLET The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET What hour now?
HORATIO I think it lacks of twelve.
MARCELLUS No, it is struck.
HORATIO Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season Wherein the spirit held its wont to walk.
[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.]
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-start reels; And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge....
HORATIO [Pointing.] My lord, it comes!
[Enter Ghost.]
HAMLET Angels and ministers of grace defend us!— Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Thou comest in such a questionable shape That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet, King, father, royal Dane: O answer me!... What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous, and we fools of nature So horridly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
[The Ghost beckons Hamlet.]
HORATIO It beckons you to go away with it, As if it some impartment did desire To you alone.
MARCELLUS Look with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground: But do not go with it.
HORATIO No; by no means.
HAMLET It will not speak; then I will follow it.
HAMLET Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin’s fee; And for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as itself?— It waves me forth again: I’ll follow it.
MARCELLUS You shall not go, my lord.
HAMLET Hold off your hands.
HORATIO Be ruled; you shall not go.
HAMLET My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve. Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen. By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me! I say, away!—Go on; I’ll follow thee!
[As Hamlet, impetuous, makes after the departing ghost,
CALIBAN [Springing up.] No, no! Follow not! Let him not follow! ’Tis A spirit lureth to Setebos and Death. He knoweth him not, what ’tis;—but, master, I know. Me, me too hath he beckoned with blind eyes And offered his gray cloth.
PROSPERO Thee? Death hath beckoned And yet thou didst not follow?
CALIBAN Hither I fled To serve thee, but he said that I should fail; Yet—yet, and thou wilt help, I will not fail!
PROSPERO And what wouldst have of me?
CALIBAN [Pointing to Ariel.] Thy wonder scroll: Nay, not thy staff again! Will never more Botch with thy lightnings. Nay, but this littler thing Lend me, and let me bear it against Death To free my father’s spirit from his gray pall. Lettest Ariel: let now thy Caliban Conspire to serve thee.
[He reaches for the scroll.]
PROSPERO Why, thou wheedlest well, And I must hope in thy self-weening. Yet Beware lest thou thyself shalt wear the drab Thou takest from him: Gray hath arsenic More keen than scarlet or the corroding blood That sered the flesh of Hercules.
CALIBAN [Eagerly.] Wilt lend me The scroll?
PROSPERO [With a gesture to Ariel.] Here!
[Ariel hands the scroll, which Prospero then gives to Caliban.]
Use this token of mine art Less blindfold than the last.
[Caliban bounds away with the scroll.]
ARIEL [Half protesting.] Will trust him, Master?
PROSPERO Yea, though he fail me yet again, for only Trust can create its object.
CALIBAN [Joyfully kissing the scroll and raising it.] Now, now, Setebos, Thy son shall wean thy Powers from Death, thy priest!
[Descending the steps, Caliban hastens to the mouth of the cell, where—as he is about to enter—Death reappears and hails him.]
DEATH Welcome, Caliban!
[Death beckons within. Pausing momentarily, Caliban seems about to draw back, but recovering his purpose cries out hoarsely:]
CALIBAN Go on; I’ll follow thee.
[He follows within and disappears. Caliban and Death have hardly vanished, when Miranda comes from her shrine, followed by the Muses, who are accompanied by a troop of Fauns. The classic hides of these are partly concealed by gay mediæval garments [Florentine and French], and some bear in their hands great vellum books and parchments, which they stack in a pile near the shrine.]
MIRANDA [Calling joyously.] Muses, sweet friends to mirth! Come forth again And fetch your little Fauns, that drowsed so long In mildew’d vaults of antique vellum, through all The winters of dark ages. Come, sad Clio, Unpucker your frown! You, pale Melpomene, Blush to a lovelier time. Yond yellow sands, That ran blood-red with orgies of old Rome, Shine golden now with young renascence. The ages Renew their summer. Joy hath its June once more, For once more Prosper reigns.
PROSPERO [As Miranda comes to him.] ’Tis thy returning Restores my summer time. I see thou hast Been rummaging old lockers.
MIRANDA Aye, sir, and found These sharp-eared Fauns, hiding like wintered field-mice In attic parchments. So I set ’em free To play, while Care the Cat’s away.—Come, now, Sicilian boys, caper your shag-hair shins, And thou, Terpsychore, lead on their dance To please my father.
[At her command, Terpsychore and the Fauns—to instruments played by the Muses—perform a joyous dance before Prospero. As they conclude, he greets them with a smile.]
PROSPERO Thanks, you hearts upleaping! After long ominous hours, thanks for your festa! And you, dear child incorrigible for joy, Come now, I will requite you—not in gold, But golden fantasy, wrought all one glow Of shadowless shining.
MIRANDA Ah, another vision?
PROSPERO Aye, ’tis a vision, that myself beheld Shine on the soil of France. I’ll show you Peace: The kings of earth at peace, after red battle; Two kings of men, each clasping brother’s hand Warm with the golden passion of strong peace.
MIRANDA What kings were they, and where?
PROSPERO England and France: ’They met in the vale of Andren, ’twixt Guynes and Arde; I was then present, saw them salute on horseback; Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung In their embracement, as they grew together.’—[17] But tell us, Ariel, what I told thee remember, How Peace was crowned on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
MIRANDA How brave a name! Would I had been there!
ARIEL [Bowing, as Prologue.] ’You lost The view of earthly glory: men might say Till this time pomp was single, but now married To one above itself. Each following day Became the next day’s master, till the last Made former wonders its. To-day, the French, All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, Shone down the English; and to-morrow, they Made Britain India: every man that stood Show’d like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too, Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear The pride upon them, that their very labor Was to them as a painting: now this masque Was cried incomparable, and the ensuing night Made it a fool and beggar. The two Kings, Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst, As presence did present them.’[18]—Lo, now, see How first they met, and clasped their hands in peace!
[Lifting Prospero’s staff, Ariel makes a gesture toward the Cloudy Curtains, which part, discovering the